


Scapegrace

by kollapsar



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Bdsm etiquette, Bonsai care as flirting, Corporate AU, Cum Eating, Danse gets a Grindr, Danse is awkward, Dick Pic Misfires, Dirty Talk, Hand Jobs, Light Bondage with a Side of Heavy Dorkiness, M/M, Masturbation, Non-Penetrative Sex, Rimming, Sexual Experimentation, Sole Survivor is a human disaster, Sub!Danse, Very Light Master/Pet, Worst Work Ethic in the Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-01 14:13:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10191755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kollapsar/pseuds/kollapsar
Summary: Modern Corporate AU. After years of distinguished military service and a spotless, established career of controlled perfection at Brotherhood Inc., Danse ends up saddled with a life of unrealized kinks, badgering of the ‘you need to get laid so get to using dating apps’ nature from his friend and coworker Haylen, and the truly distracting existence on astonishingly unqualified new employee.Said astonishingly unqualified employee is corporate mercenary Alexander Fortune, whose apparently misfired dick pic and filthy solicitations now sit in Danse's brand new Grindr inbox.Inspired by this post: http://reinventlou.tumblr.com/post/158034291877/someone-turn-this-into-a-fic-ill-pay-you-with-my





	1. Sex

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, no, I just thought an AU where Danse gets a Grindr was a disaster worth pursuing. If you really want someone to blame for this, blame Aria.  
> Some other notes and gentle warnings: More sex-related tags will be added when the last and most explicit chapter comes up. My Sole Survivor, Alexander, is a recovering alcoholic veteran. There's some talk of it, but not much. There's some blink-and-you-miss-it Haylen/Neriah later on. There's some very mild kinkshaming of the Daddy kink, more or less along the lines of 'Please don't call me Daddy'. And I've done my best, beyond being a kinky shit myself, to do my research, but I'm entirely open to corrections, discussion and improvements where possible on the portrayal of BDSM as safe, sane and consensual.  
> No plants were harmed in the making of this fic.

After ten years of stellar performance at Brotherhood, Inc., Danse has lived a life that’s amassed just about everything he could ever desire. Danse works in a company that’s garnered his indisputable loyalty, disposable income for his car modeling needs, reliable insurance, an excellent 401k plan, and a bonsai tree on his desk, because his coworker Haylen thinks that it might help with, in her words, that sorting-papers-and-fidgeting thing he does when he thinks no one can see him. (It doesn’t, and to add insult to injury, the thing is wilting despite his watering it almost religiously at the ideal volume and time of day.)

Bonsai trees aside, there is something reassuring, spiritual even, about the mere amount of _control_ he can exert on his environment by organizing and planning and being as damn good at his job as he is. Brotherhood Inc. hires military contenders for administration, something he respects. His skills transfer aptly to the work.

But the sturdy, all-fixing arms of control do not extend to all domains. Danse has excellent field experience with knowing this, with making recalculations, tactical modifications, with adapting them to the company needs of Brotherhood, Inc..

What Danse clearly doesn’t have any experience in- and therefore no control, reassurance, predictability, and confidence- are the following areas: sex, drugs, and kinky fuckery.

It’s all really the minor matter of, past _finding_ someone to sleep with, actually informing them that he would love nothing more than to be tied up, collared, fucked slowly, owned, and consumed completely in submission.

It is, as Rhys would put it, a capital P Problem.

ONE: SEX

It seems only natural that after supplying fidget toys, calendars and dying plants for his desk space, Haylen has also picked up on his social life- or complete lack of thereof.

“Well, sir,” she says in all the Brotherhood-approved protocol, “you really could do with having some company and life back home as well. It’s just a matter of having a healthy balance, taking some time for your own, uh… happiness.” _Happiness,_ said with just the right hand flourish and covert, low tone to distinguish from the organized, insured and hygienic form of happiness Danse practices.

Happiness, as in getting laid.

Danse has no idea what’s even put this absurd notion in her mind. As far as he’s concerned, he can spend the rest of his life taking care of his needs himself. And he says so. And maybe there is an entire community out there he could talk to, but he doesn’t tell Haylen. He’s not willing to open that kind of dialogue with that kind of community.

Isn’t ready to. There’s too many terms. Too many established rules and norms he doesn’t understand- a form of asking for what he needs in a way he’s never had to ask before. It makes his head swirl at the thought, makes tightness build uncomfortably in his throat.

But Haylen doesn’t back down. “Well, what about online dating? It isn't as taboo as it used to be, there’s some with people looking for military matches, you know, and you can get plenty of- uh- ahem…”

Haylen trails off into a dismal silence.

“Plenty of happiness?” he supplies, dully.

“Well. Experience.”

That’s where he decides to kill it in the bud. He tells her, slowly and seriously, that he appreciates the concern on a personal level. He also tells her, in so many words, that the next time she puts his social life to him on office hours, he will drop her with the ugliest, oldest, most convoluted contract case he can find, order a consistency check in the filing at the archives, and send her shimmying downward, into dregs of bureaucratic hell.

 

Haylen responds respectfully to this request. So, of course, several days later, on an off-hours call, she takes to asking him out to dinner herself.

Danse is cooking and very much not appreciative of this invasion. He doesn’t speak for a moment, dangles the slab of meat he’s about to cook suspended in the air with the phone between his ear and shoulder, contemplating.

After years of friendship, he’s lost on how to break this to her. He starts with: “Haylen. I’m flattered you would take this project of yours to this point of commitment.” So slowly he can almost convince himself to take any of this seriously. Thinks to follow up with something elegant and succinct to shut her down once and for all. “But there’s a... minor problem in your proposal.”

There’s an inhale of disbelief on the other end. He prepares himself for the inevitable. _“Danse. We were in the military together, right? You’ve seen me tear my clothes to bits on the field on shrapnel, scalpels and God knows what, and your most virile response has been offering me a canvas strip to cover up in while you fetch a spare uniform.”_ She pauses, seems to give that a moment to sink in. _“I’m trying to take you to a bar to meet people, Danse. Goodness._ ”

“Oh.”

_“Yes.”_

Danse loves Haylen. He really does. He has seen the woman wipe blood spatter from her fatigues and helmet countless times after countless operations, fingers shuddering into an uncontrollable tremble only after all the tools had been cleaned, put away. She has been there to forgive him in his failings as a commanding officer, and then as a director, when he hasn’t been able to forgive himself.

But... “No."

_“Why?”_

How exactly can he say that there’s nothing in the world that even Haylen could do to get him to dump enough alcohol into his body to tolerate grinding with a stranger under shifty lighting, deafening cacophony and highly undue influence? “I’ve patronized clubs and bars before,” he says, trying not to sound offended at, well, everything. “They’re... unsavory. Dirty.”

She sighs, conceding. _“No, I can’t say savory is any bar’s main goal. Look, how about we strike some sort of deal?”_

He chews on the inside of his mouth. But he’s almost certain he doesn’t want, well, _what_ he wants to be carried out by a sweaty, dancing stranger on a one-and-done sort of occasion. Still, it says enough about how much he likes Haylen that he’s even entertaining the idea. “What deal?”

_“You give online dating a try. There’s Tinder, OKCupid, you know. Grindr even. Put your, uh, personality out there so people will know if they’ll click with you. Check folks out. You’ll- uh- you won’t have any trouble getting hits, I promise.”_

He regards this with suspicious silence. “And?”

_“Well, if you don’t end up meeting someone you can talk to, you're consigned to attempt this thing called mingling at the bar with me next week.”_

It’s almost infuriatingly fair. He tosses the meat into the pan and layers the seasoning. “All right.”

_“Great. See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”_

“Tinder or... Grindr, you said?” Even the names feel wrong in his mouth. Inappropriate.

 _“Yes.”_ There’s a strange keenness to her voice. _“Do you want some help setting up your profile? Have you taken any good selfies lately?”_

“...No.” Danse pinches the bridge of his nose at even the sound of the word _selfie._ “Listen,” he says, feeling the exhaustion already climbing up his temples like a forming headache, “if none of this works out, we’re never to speak of it again.”

 _“Sure thing,”_ she says, far too chipper to be reassuring in the least.


	2. Drugs

His phone has vibrated in his pocket at least twenty times this morning, and it is making an already maddening day approach the boundaries of, as his old company men would have kindly called it, a clusterfuck.

The man across his desk is clearly having a difficult time in resisting the urge pluck up Danse’s bonsai tree and examine it more thoroughly. Danse, in turn, is having an obscenely difficult time trying to frame the right words to chastise a soldier when the sum of the report of all his misconduct is making _his_ head spin.

Danse believes in his very bones that the Elder of Brotherhood Inc. could not have a more competent steerage of the company’s direction, its mission, its infrastructure. He is also fully and expertly trained to know when not to ask questions.

But he has _so many_ right now.

“Your record sheet says you are a decorated veteran in the recent war. Army,” he starts, knowing he should at least get off on the right foot with something they can both respect, relate to. “I served in the Pacific region, myself. Where were you posted?”

“Ah…” a long, hesitant drag of air. “Canada. Not my favorite topic.” Due to the man wearing large, reflective aviators even indoors, it’s difficult to say whether Alexander Fortune is fixing him with due, respectful eye contact or just staring at his bonsai tree. The man finally leans forward, adjusting the lapels of his fur-lined jacket and fixing elbows on knees. Danse catches a whiff of dark, low smoke, and feels the discomfort crawl across his back. He can only call it discomfort- it’s almost electric. “Hey,” the man starts, voice gratingly warm and casual. “Not to be too, ah, forward, but what are you, 28? 29? Aren’t you a bit young to have both ‘veteran’ and ‘well-promoted corporate drone’ under your belt?”

Danse’s first response is to be offended- he’s 32. His second is realization: he now understands why Rhys was just hollering with rage all the way over down the hall in the tech department a minute ago. The man’s not exactly tactful. “As head of a weaponry and armor manufacturing giant organizing several offshore military interests, Elder Maxson sees it only appropriate that those experienced with service maintain executive posts in the company. I was assigned to this position according my skillset.”

“Yeah, I could tell you were army before you said a word,” he says. “You’re clearly very good at being assigned to things.” The light is flooding his office with an unfriendly cast of white, casting the every dark freckle into contrast across Fortune’s skin. And when the sun hits him just right, Danse can almost see his eyes- how they squint as if he’s just heard something absurd, and maybe even a little bit amusing.

He feels his brows knit. He really doesn’t know what he’s supposed to make of those words. “The staffing policies are really something you already should know, as one of our contractors,” he says, trying not to sound as hapless as he feels.

A shrug. “Well, I’ve just been running your jobs. Apparently it took a disaster of royal proportion for me to talk to the guys on top.” Fortune smiles gamely.

“Yes. The list of infractions you’ve committed in your last assignment were… substantial. As such, the Elder has placed you under my direct supervision for a probationary period.”

“Hence the benching.” A pause. “Desking. Whatever you can call it.”

“Yes.”

“Did it say what I did, specifically? Or just for the-” he gestures, “whole can of beans.”

Danse peeks under the cover slip of the file. The list is abysmal in both length and content, but it seems that someone along the chain of communication has made the point of circling, and highlighting, and then circling once more the words _substance abuse._ “Substance abuse,” he says. “Reckless endangerment.” He reads another. “Incendiary booby-trapping.” Pauses, digests the words ‘incendiary’ and ‘booby-trapping’ next to each other for his own sake.

“Oh.” Fortune chuckles, folding his dark freckled hands over his knee and leaning back in the chair, that sort of irreverent spread of presence. “Look. Sixty-two days now- doesn’t sound impressive to a non-addict, but it is what it is. I’ve done the twelve steps; almost cleared to see my son. You want me to tell you it won't be a problem. It won't.” He says it as if discussing last night’s game or something equally inconsequential. “And the booby trap was just a quick rig, little molotov and lighter trigger for anyone who found my nest. Don’t see why it even made it in there.”

It’s Danse’s turn to squint at this point, and he turns back to his file. Fortune’s skills are entirely well-suited for mercenary work: from his track record contracting with the company, he’s almost indecently good at recon, stalking, orienteering, infiltrating, mapping and trapping. It’s not hard to read between the lines: he’s a sniper, and probably could be a damn good one if he could only just learn what the hell _protocol wa_ s.

And now, he’s a sniper with no definition of principles consigned to work an office job.

The man seems to sense his line of thought. “You look like you think this file makes me cause for concern.”

Danse has a wealth of concerns, a veritable state treasury and economy thriving on the currency of _being concerned,_ and the economy is only growing by the minute.

A low _vvvvrb_ repeats, rising from his pocket.

“Well, if it means anything,” Fortune says, politely ignoring the phone, “the entire mission was stellar. Clean, done, and out with my spotter before first light. They only saw the alcohol levels after the fact, almost on accident.”

_Vrrrrb._

“You were drinking on the job?” he asks, stunned.

“I was drinking every frigging day I was working. You wouldn’t know that if you just saw the mission reports and not the medicals.”

Danse has to sit back in his chair. “Why in God’s name would you do that to yourself?”

He gives a small grimace, clearly unhappy with the question. “Pardon my French, but who gives a shit? My record is a line of successes and I’m sober now.”

“Any substance abuse is abuse, soldier,” Danse pronounces each word with frustrated deliberation. “Success or not.” He inhales. The memo said three months to see if Fortune could be field ready again. Danse about wants to draft up his own proposal to get this man out of his office, out of his jurisdiction, and thrown back into whatever guerilla combat hell he came from- only this time, on a leash so short and a bureaucratic regime so herculean that Records would get a written report if the man so much as sneezed.

But he can’t. The Elder is trusting him with this. “What... other skills do you have? Management, leadership? Organization and data entry?”

Fortune shrugs. “I work in a garage on the weekends fixing up old cars.” Pause. Danse waits for more. “Uh. I did landscaping as a teenager. Army taught me a bit about circuitry.” Pause. He’s fiddling with his fingers now. “My sponsor has me doing a couple days a week volunteering at the city center?” His smile shrivels a fraction. “My ex-wife is a lawyer?”

Danse finds himself floored, faced with the very concept of an experienced, decorated veteran completely inept at operations in the offices of an _arms manufacturing and security contracting company._ “ _Anything_ that you could bring to an office?”

“My good looks?” The look on Danse’s face is apparently sufficient to inform Fortune that this doesn’t count. Even, he admits privately, if he is good-looking. “Well,” he says, shifting. “I guess I can start by giving some love and affection to this suffering dwarf Juniper of yours. Get it up, sturdy again.”

He blanches. "Excuse me?"

“The tree, man,” he points to the bonsai tree- or, more specifically, the withering fringes of its leaves. “It’s dying. Sagging.” He nods to it, then to Danse. “Let me have it for a few days. I’ll get it straightened out and, ah, get back to you?”

_Vrrrrrrrrrrrrb. Vrrrrrb._

He feels his shoulders sag, purses his lips, and feels a sinking tiredness grow across his entire body. And decides he needs this snafu of a human being out of his office, immediately. “Go to Haylen’s desk. Ask her to train you in the steps of consistency checks across files. There’s an... old one that you can start with. She’ll know the one.”

The man gives a blindingly self-assured smile, clearly oblivious to the insidious load of paperwork awaiting him. “Sure thing, sir. Is there anything else?” The last words come out slow- almost as if there really is something they should be discussing.

Danse frowns at the implication, puzzled. There’s absolutely nothing to talk about. “No. You should get to work.”

Alexander Fortune chuckles darkly, and nods. And then tears out of the chair like a freed beast, sweeping up the bonsai tree in his hands and disappearing out the door before Danse can say a single thing about the abducted plant in question.

The room almost feels tranquil now, but for that incessant buzzing of his phone.

Exhaling, he turns his chair to the window and tugs it out, determined to silence the damned thing once and for all as soon as it’s unlocked.

His eyes are greeted by a cascade of messages from Grindr. If they may be called that; they’re propositions in all manner of colorful language and imagery, skipping straight from the conventions of courtship and polite inquiry of interests to… His eyes skim the one message towards the bottom of the feed.

_luckystrike says:_

_god, you look amazing. i want to cum on your face and lick it off that gorgeous chest hair of yours. better yet, hold you down and fuck you until you cum all over yourself and make a beautiful mess._

_luckystrike says:_

_here’s what i’m working with_

He almost doesn’t want to scroll down to the attached picture. Yet there’s a curious spark that itches in his thumb, hovering over the bright pixels, contemplating. He’s not sure what he will see, but he has an idea, and if he’s right, it will have been a… a first time for him.

He inhales, drags his finger across the screen and pulling it into view.

It’s not a well-lit photo by any means, it’s taken from an side angle close enough to trace the every vein of this stranger, the curve of his erect length and the pink and brown of his dark cock. He’s sizeable, Danse will give him that. But what draws his eye is the shining line of precum glimmering across his glans, the grip of those hand just barely framing his cock to view.

He’s staring.

_luckystrike says:_

_let me know what you think ;)_

He blinks. The message is… well, it’s certainly direct. And yet, they were descriptive enough to incite his interest. And… enticing. Experienced, straightforward.

Curious to learn about this stranger, he taps the username to visit the profile page. Waits for it to load, and... oh.

Oh, no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being on this ride so far lmao.  
> I intend to have the next two chapters posted simultaneously when I'm done with 4, sometime before the week is over at best hopes if work doesn't get in the way. Until then, would be overjoyed to know what you think.


	3. Kinky

“Thank you for coming in.” Even after a week of thinking them over, he almost chokes on the words. His nerves coil and tighten in his throat just as he looks on, hears the audible click of his office door shut behind the man.

It’s been a long work week. It’s been a week of avoiding Alexander Fortune and also hovering in every space just barely outside his radius, tiptoeing around possibilities, second-guesses, and the __hope__.

Danse reaches for the glasses he keeps beneath his desk. For Maxson, there’s gin and brandy. For Alexander, well, he stopped by the 7-11 on the way to work today and found grape juice. He almost regrets the gesture- it feels so obsequious now.

But his throat is dry and tight. And desperate for the possibility of anything to make this go easier- in any form more palatable.

Alexander- who’s insisted on not being called by his last name, in the succinct terms of, __“Just call me Alex. We’re not in the goddamn military anymore. You’re safe, you’re free, good God”__ \-  takes a seat, leaning back in the chair with a relaxed, off-duty air. He has, in Haylen’s terms, ‘mellowed out’ considerably since Monday, and through the resolved cases of mismatched, crushed and otherwise abused paperwork, complaints of too-strong coffee, whining reports from Rhys and gentle comments from Haylen (which are infinitely more serious, to Danse, than anything from Rhys), at this point Danse will just have to settle for the man traipsing about working in tactical sweaters and bouncing rubber band balls off his desk in place of any gestures in the direction of the company policy.

Danse has also had to settle to thinking about that savory, highly defined and intimate picture of Alexander Fortune’s cock in every moment he’s seen the man at work. And then some out of them.

It’s been… considerably troubling.

The sun is setting and he is soaking in its light, looking almost completely unaffected by the gravitas of the situation. And Danse is almost breathless- he has a plan for this meeting, he really does, but just as he looks at the man and remembers those messages, sitting unacknowledged still in his inbox, he feels his strategies reconfiguring themselves in the moment. And then unraveling, useless.

He won’t stutter. He absolutely won’t. He sets the glasses down delicately, works to unscrew the juice carton. “Do you know why you’re here today?” It’s his best __boss__ voice he’s ever known. He wish it didn’t sound so deflated now.

Alexander seems to think this over. “Well, I actually did that consistency check you asked for, mould and silverfish aside, and had Haylen look at it, so… Well, let me guess.” He twists his head up to look at him and raises an eyebrow, smiling almost mischievously. “Uh. Did your servers pick up me sending a dick pic and a filthy hookup invite over Grindr on company WiFi minutes before we had that briefing meeting?”

Danse stops mid-pour, juice suspended at the lid of the carton, and makes flat eye contact. There’s that... detail he’s not mentioning. The little one. About who he messaged. He honestly doesn’t know what to say. “Well...”

“Ah,” he leans his head back again. “Sorry about that. Big accident. Won’t happen again.”

Big accident. Something in his chest twists. He doesn’t like it. “Alexander,” he says, firmly. “You sent that ‘dick pic’ and filthy hookup invite to __me.__ ”

He stirs, stiffly craning back to look at him. A whole gamut of emotions take course on the man’s face in too few seconds, and almost immediately Danse feels like he’d rather just go swallow his heart in his throat, run twenty miles, launch himself off Trinity Tower in Power Armor and just forget about this forever. Alexander goes from squinting to staring to wide-eyed to leaning forward and well and truly __staring__ , to the point that Danse can feel his cheeks growing warm. “Well, huh,” he murmurs, awed. “So that __was__ you.” He pauses, rolling his jaw, seeming to register this to the point that Danse can almost see the gears turning in the man’s head. Alexander squints, opens his mouth. “So, you actually __are__ a kinky sl-”

Danse blocks out whatever else he says by thunking his full glass of grape juice down in front of him. Grape juice just doesn’t have the same effect as wine in this special brand of awful situation, but it will have to do.

And then Alexander just laughs. His hard, rich voice fills the room, cuts out any buzz of traffic in the city below. Cuts out everything. “Sweet Jesus, Mr. Danse. And here I was thinking some awkward, catfishing joe just stole your company profile page pic to go to town with. Couldn’t you have just taken a selfie?”

His face is well and truly red now. He takes a long sip of his drink and looks away. “I’m… not exactly experienced in this. I didn’t expect anything to come of those profiles, but this app… Grindr…”

“Well, Jesus.” He sits back. “I don’t think you see why the likes of you would be in demand, but to be straight with you- “ he pauses, chuckles to himself, “which I’m not, but- not every gorgeous and successful ex-soldier wants to experiment with ropes and gags and the whole shebang. Any dominant would love the privilege of helping you figure this out.”

He clears his throat. It’s strange to even hear the words __rope and gags__  spoken aloud by someone in the room. His room. His office. Or __anywhere.__  And hearing the word ‘gorgeous’ slide out of Alexander’s mouth with that subtle nuanced street accent. “Would… would you?”

“Dominate you, you mean? Have you ask me to do whatever you want with your body, let __me__ do __that__? Jesus...” He sighs, inscrutable, takes a drink of his own juice and swirls the liquid in the cup, watches it. “I messaged you, didn’t I?”

Danse blinks. He’s almost sure he’s blushing- his face is blooming with warmth all across, but he can’t give in to the urge to look away, cover his mouth, make some sort of barrier here. “Still?” he asks. “After this whole week of me not bringing it up? Of… of knowing the person I am, now?”

“I don’t presume to know the person you are any more than you know me,” Alexander says, so casually it almost stabs. “But we can fix that. And, hell, knowing you and your inexperience makes the not replying back completely understandable.” He offers a devilish smile, though it seems almost kiddish in his energy. “My dick pics can leave the best of them speechless.”

He knows it’s a joke, but the picture really did, for him. “Why?”

Alexander gives a hum and a shrug, leaning the office chair back and looking to the shimmering light across the windows of the office, “Why am I willing to dom you? Isn’t that obvious?” he gestures to- well, Danse’s entire body.

“No,” he says, face burning. “Well. How did you… I suppose I’m… inquiring about your experience.”

“How I know what I like?” He contemplates the question. “There’s a short version and a long version.”

“I just want to know,” he says softly.

“I’m shit at stories.” Alexander looks to the distance, seeming to recall. “Well, ah, Nora- my ex-wife- Nora and I were married for years, and even before that we dated all through high school. She didn’t fancy the same things I did, but that was fine. Things got tough for us in college, we broke up a few times. I’d go out when we’d break up, mess around, figure things out for myself. Met some older people. Women. Men. Figure out who I was. And I found out what I liked, you know.” He finishes his drink, almost too quickly. “But Nora and I- we got back together- got married. No regrets there, it’s just over now, and it’s for everyone’s good, but that just leaves me, well…” he trails off, gestures aimlessly with his unoccupied hand as if Danse is supposed to know what that means. “Look, past all that,” he says, offering a sheepish smile. “I’ll… uh, I’ll train you, if you’ll have me. Not a word of it out of the bedroom, and if you don’t like it, then we just move on, no issues.”

He nods, speechless. Is this just how this happens? Just like this?

“You’re going to have to call me ‘Sir’, you know. Or something like it. Master. You know.”

Danse isn’t exactly unfamiliar with calling people ‘sir’. Master, though… He turns the word over in his mouth silently. Tastes it. “Is it true in the community some of… your kind want to be called ‘Daddy’?”

Alexander’s eyes widen a little. “Wow. You actually just said that word. From your own mouth. You.” His laugh has a frenetic edge to it, and it sets Danse to wonder if he said something wrong.  “That- well, that’s not my thing. Though I’m sure-” he coughs, “I’m sure there’d be people who’d give an arm and leg to hear you say that, fuck… Okay, we’re... we’re going to have to lay some ground rules about what you need and how you’ll be able to stay safe. And you’re never going to need to call me Daddy. Yeah?”

He nods again. “When… when can we…” He looks around helplessly, like he can find the words somehow. Outside, employees are filing out of work to embrace the rest of their Fridays. He can see Rhys trailing after Kell with some idea or other all the way to the elevator, Haylen sidling her rucksack as she ambles away at her own pace. And here he is, with Alexander, mind doing gymnastics over the… logistics of this business.

About training. As if he’s some fresh employee and Alexander is his superior, not the other way around. As if Alexander isn’t shorter, as if Danse couldn’t still pick up this broad-shouldered sniper and pin him to the desk.

They’re talking about tying him up. Danse feels his mouth dry- everything seems so bright. “I don’t have… much to. Use, I mean. ”

Alexander smiles, stands. “It’s fine. My address is on file, right? You can come over tomorrow night. We’ll just talk, and if we do anything, it won’t be drastic. Just see how you feel, what you like. Would you like that?”

Danse’s mind flashes with the dirty talk in those messages- word that have been etched across his brain all week, words that have revisited him over countless files, cases, inspections, meetings.

And here it is, the source. And he’s asking him if he’d like that- any of it.

“Yes,” he says, swallowing. “I would.” Too quickly to allow himself to back out, regret it.

There’s an almost unsettling raise in Alexander’s eyebrow, a twitch at the end of his lips where his freckles meet his mouth. “Yeah,” he says, softly, hand running across the surface on the edge of Danse’s desk. “I hoped so.”

 

Danse feels as if he spends the rest of that Friday drifting in a daze between work, home, the grocery store. There’s something thrilling, strange and new in walking down the aisles and picking oatmeal off a shelf, while all the while going over and over the situations, the words, the picture… The possibilities.

He goes over them in his head. For purely tactical reasons, of course. Because he’d rather know what to expect, he reviews what he knows, his understanding, the pornography he’s seen, the… the thoughts he’s had, by himself, in moments of less reservation by himself on longer weekends.

He goes over them too much, to the point that he finds himself browsing spice containers he isn’t reading with hands gripping his cart too tightly until sweat slicks the insides of his palms and his slacks begin to tighten.

He’s lucky his cart is full enough to save him the public embarrassment. He calls himself back to earth in staves of sobering meditation on aisle names and sums of the grocery prices mentally added up- an unnecessary habit now that he has a disposable income, but a comforting routine from far older days.

Most of all, he wonders if the picture is anything as he remembers it. Because he’s been almost afraid to open it all week, afraid to revisit the words, the lurid pixels of that cock displayed for his eyes alone, that… everything.

The thought follows him home until traffic is unbearable. He doesn’t remember entering his apartment lobby or making it up the elevator or down the hallway to his apartment, groceries clattering a roughed-up plastic noise as they bob in his hand.

They fall to the floor and his back flattens against the door, and he feels almost a decompression in his chest, like abruptly he’s been released from the weight of the day now that he stands, alone, in the darkness of his home with nothing but the light scent of Pine-Sol and his own day soaked into his suit. He palms the phone in his pocket, slides it unlocked, blinks rapidly with the pain as the loud pixel light floods his vision.

His Grindr- hell, all his apps- are polluted with unsolicited messages. He swallows down something strange- lewd, almost, jolts down from the base of his skull to the tip of his spine, sliding through the bolded texts left unopened in his inbox, the invitations from icons bound in assortments of leather.

He finds Alexander, unreplied and read, sidled close to the bottom of his inbox. He opens the text, meditates on the words alone.

Hold him down and fuck him, Alexander says. Until he comes all over himself.

He imagines the man’s dark hands sliding over his own hair, carding through with those gun-callused hands until forming a hard fist. He imagines the vividly outline veins of that cock smooth against his cheek, the hot contact of precum and saliva tracing a shining line over his cheekbone before meeting his lips, stretching them just perfectly around him.

Danse doesn’t make it to the bed. He’s busy, gasping in his own bedroom doorway, sliding down the frame until his back aches, burns, his jacket crumpling over as it rides up against the wood, the light of his phone burning his vision in the dark as his hand desperately pulls away at his belt, his fly. He shuts his eyes, the red burning behind his vision as he feels the almost instant relief of working himself free, hissing as the cold of his own hands palms his sensitive cock, thumb gliding over his own soaking precum.

Christ.

 _ _Hold you down and fuck you.__  He imagines Alexander’s hands on each of his hips, holding him painfully still when the rest of him is shaking, cock teasing against his skin, his back, the inside of his thighs tensing around the hot flesh as it slides beneath, between, plays against the underside of his own erection. He imagines begging, the hard gasps of __Master__ slipping from his lips- Alexander’s steady, well-trained hands silencing him with a palm over his lips- and from there, his imagination only unfurls further.

Harder.

The phone falls away, light flung to the far wall, and Danse bucks his hips to a frantic height, silencing his crying, desperate pants in his knuckles.

If he shuts his eyes and works hard and fast enough, his hand can be anyone else’s.

It can be Alexander Fortune’s.

 

 

He tells Haylen.

Not everything- absolutely not- but he does tell her. He’s not sure how, but it all tumbles out far further than the originally intended ‘I found someone of interest’ text. There was a day when he couldn’t even imagine letting Haylen speak a peep about his sex life, but he supposes they’re not in the army anymore, he’s not her commanding officer, and, well…

He tells Haylen everything except the very essential bit that the man he is willing to learn the art of kinky fuckery from is none other than SNAFU of a human being, benched sniper Alexander Fortune. __“What do you mean he didn’t give his name?”__

“It was…” he makes a show of tearing open the plastic pack wrapping of his cabbage as loudly as he can. If only to buy himself time. “He used a. Um. It was a form of pseudonym.”

__“Well, what is it?”_ _

Danse desperately scans the kitchen for a savior, a piece of inspiration that could sound even vaguely like the pseudonym of a person who would enjoy meeting people on the internet with the intentions of engaging in copious amount of sexual bondage. “Um.” His eyes fly to his laptop, his Facebook feed where he found his recipe, the trending topics- something, anything. “It’s... Hamilton.”

Haylen is quiet for a moment. __“That... doesn’t sound very sexy.”__ And perks up too quickly, saving herself, __“But, uh, what would I know? You said he was military too, right? Look at you out and finding yourself a- uh...? Dominator?”__

He cringes. “A dominant. Or dom.”

 _ _“Okay. A dom.__ _ _”__ There’s a soft chuckle, but it fades away too quickly. _ _“__ _ _Danse?”__

“Yes?”

__“I know I don’t have to tell you this, but make sure you’re safe about this, okay? There’s a lot of sketchy folk on the internet and whatnot.”_ _

“We’ve already met somewhere public,” he says. It’s not a lie: they have. Multiple times. All week. “We’ve gone over some ground rules.”

__“Wow. Huh. You’re…”_ _

“More experienced than you expected?”

“ _ _No, no. If you say it like that, it sounds like I think you’ve never had sex before.__ ” She laughs softly. Danse can hear the yipping of her dog over the phone, the distant traffic of her apartment, the drone of the television. She never leaves the television on when she’s alone. “ _ _You’re just taking a lot of initiative. It’s good.”__

He pauses his cooking, feels himself settle down by the kitchen window of his flat and contemplate the darkening sky beyond. “I had some moral support from a badgering friend.”

She laughs, quiets down too fast. “ _ _So, this guy… You’re really sure about this? He just… you know, you called him military, and he wants to literally, well… dominate you. It just sounds… it all sounds like much to start with.”__

“I’m not- I’m not sure. Of anything.” He relaxes, tightens his grip on the phone, turns the whole thing over in his head. “I just get the sense from speaking with him that that’s all right. That we can find out what I want.”

__“I see. Well, text me with the juicy details when you can. And be safe.”_ _

They both know Danse has mountains of reservations to climb over before he’d even __think__  of sending her the juicy details. But he just nods to himself like she can see. “Thank you, Haylen,” he says.

__“No offense, Danse, but it’ll be me thanking you if you finally get to loosen up a bit from this. That bonsai tree was literally soaking up your anxious energy. Before I go, can I ask, what happened to it? Do you need a new one? Neriah knows a store, that’s where I got the first one...”_ _

“No, it’s all right.” He clears his throat. “The new employee, um, Alexander said he could save it. I should have it back soon.”

 _ _“...Oh. I, um, I see.”__ By the tone of her voice, it sounds like she’s already writing a eulogy in her head in tribute to plant in question. With the phrase ‘incendiary booby-trapping’ from the report still fresh in mind, Danse is inclined to agree. __“Well, we can shop around this weekend if we’re in the area. She says there are some more enduring species you could get. And there’s always succulents.”__

He makes a sound of agreement, all the while imagining the smallest, most unimposing cactus in the smallest terracotta vase sitting alone on his rosewood desk beside his massive stacks of confidential paperwork. Completely out of place, out of character, and charming only in the tininess of its presence.

Alexander would have a field day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much for posting chapters simultaneously at the end of the week lmao;;;;;;;; If it's any assurance, I have most of the sexy dorkiness of the last chapter drafted and ready to go. Let me know how we're riding.


	4. Fuckery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd apologize for being so damn late in updating, but seriously, between losing some of the handwritten pages for this and life doing the thing, I've tried to make up for it with as much smut as I could produce. And ended up with a chapter that was bigger than all the previous chapters combined. Enjoy the plant care talk as foreplay/seduction. I'm sorry about a lot of things all the time but not about the silly amount of research I've done on bonsai for this.

“It’s okay to be nervous.” When he lets him in, Alexander’s hand is rough to the touch, callused on the edges of his palm where it rests lightly on his forearm. Danse wore shirtsleeves- he didn’t know why, it just seemed appropriate, and here was Alexander, freshly showered in a v-neck that hugged his arms- and somehow still managing to smell like cut grass and nitrogen fertilizer. Danse reads constellations of freckles across his biceps when he dares to glance.

“It’s okay to have questions or not be sure of yourself,” he’s saying. “I’d- well, I’d offer you a light drink because that usually helps for nerves, but, uh…” his smile is painfully apologetic. “It’d be against house rules. You want anything?” He’s already sauntering away in some kind of awkward crabwalk, making to his tiny corner for a kitchen’s fridge. “I have juice, water, milk-”

He swallows- or tries to with a mouth dry as firebrush. “It’s fine. Water’s fine.” He realizes at some point that he’s been standing on the welcome mat at parade rest this entire time, and gingerly steps inside, assessing the apartment.

If anything, he’s almost alarmed by how _ _decent__ Alexander’s apartment is. It’s small- living room shares most space with the kitchen- and bare as a newfound bachelor’s home would be, but it’s not desolate, no. There’s an old-fashioned fireplace with a shelf just above, decorated with what looks to be a family picture, and a medal, jammed away behind the family photo frame like an undesirable. Tucked just between the two is an unframed photo of a dark-skinned boy of about ten at a science fair stand.

“That’s Shaun,” Alexander says absentmindedly from the kitchen. “In the picture. He got his mom’s big brains and his dad’s steady hands but he still doesn’t believe his dad when he says he’ll probably rule the world someday.” He speaks with a sort of frank, matter-of-factness that Danse knows well from his days in battle: a comfortable, confident fondness, an assurance that family will be home at the end of everything. He hasn’t known it himself, but he’s heard it enough. He looks away.

The kitchen still smells of lavender lysol and cigarettes, and the breeze rushing in carries the scent of the dewy leaves of the greenery set on the window sill. And is there __greenery:__ potted plants litter the sunlit side of the room, with ivies climbing in ferocious tangles up lattice supports on the walls, ripening cherry tomatoes glistening that orange-green on the vine, a row of herbs crawling out the sides of their sill box, leaves dancing in that brief wind.

This isn’t what he expected at all. Even his bonsai tree looks better for its temporary home, set beside innumerable tools upon a weathered coffee table by the couch and matched by another tree that looks to be of a different species.

Alexander turns, glasses in hand, and follows his gaze to the lot of overgrown verdure.

“You, uh,” Danse starts. “You like plants.” He politely refrains from adding that he about expected the bonsai to be dead and gone by the time he arrived- to be fair, he was expecting something far… mercenary?

 _ _You like plants,__ though. He could smack himself.

Alexander exhales a soft laugh and hands him the glass. “Preston- my sponsor- gave me one fern when he found out I used to garden for my ex-wife’s family. Said I should do it again, get a new routine.” He takes a quick drink. “Guess I went overboard.”

Overboard is appropriate. Every inch of the sill is littered with terracotta, sill planters, and everything that could even possibly have a hope of forming chlorophyll. And the bonsai trees on the coffee table- well, his tree looks healthier than it has any right to be.

Beside him, the man turns the cup around in his hands. “It’s not real, you know.”

“What?” Danse blinks, shaken out of his reverie.

“The tree,” he gestures to the plant with his glass, guiding Danse by the arm toward the couch. ”It’s not a real bonsai. It’s a dwarf tree. There’s a difference.”

He’s not sure what to say. He feels his face reddening, completely at loss in this situation, and takes his entire glass of water in one summary drink. Danse knows figures, plans, notes, post-its, flow coordination, cars, power armor. Danse is the __god__ of post-its and power armor if Haylen and Rhys have anything to say about it.

But now he needs to contend with the idea that he probably couldn’t nurture a rock, on top of being sexually awkward.

“Hold on,” Alexander says, seemingly oblivious to his flustered state. He leans over the table, sifting through array of tools, cutters and wires to the right of his own, non-impostor bonsai. He slides the tree toward Danse, sitting back then with a tool in hand. “I grew this one in college. They’re a bitch to get started from seeds- take several months.”

Before Danse can say a word, he finds his hand gently taken in Alexander’s own, guided to the tree- he finds himself brushing over a knot of wire above the stem, where bulges barely escape the looping constraints. It seems to be choking it, like a posture-fitting bodice, turning the branch outward and twisting until halfway to the end. But the tree itself- the leaves are tiny, delicate, brushing soft against his fingers- and Alexander’s.

“Investment of years,” he says. “Taking a normal tree seed, making it grow, scaffolding and trimming and shaping it in bondage so it never grows to a full size.” He chuckles, yet Danse finds that the man’s hands are astoundingly- even frighteningly- still. He has to remind himself where his talents lie- all the while, wondering how to pose the question to him. “But this one’s grown into its support already, see?” he brushes the bulges of the branches, traces the shape they’ve been structured into. “So here.” He reaches out the tool in his hand, a dark, glistening wire cutter, and takes a decisive cut into a protruding line toward the end of the branch. “Unravel it.”

Unravel it. He doesn’t miss the subtext. But how the hell does he address it?

Still, there's something tantalizing in knowing that, sitting here together, they could likely still kill each other if they wanted. That their bodies both are slabs engraved with the language of war. Alexander is all but hovering in his space now, frowning with focus as he guides his hand, just barely touching him, directing each motion as he takes the wire and bends it out of its coil about the branch, unraveling it revolution by revolution until the mangled wire hangs off the stem.

“You know what I think?” Alexander speaks quietly, reaching in and taking the last of that scaffolding away and letting it linger in Danse’s grip. “You’re better suited to this hobby than you know.”

“Me and bonsai?” Danse stops in mid-turn, because when he looks to him, Alexander is inches from his face. Oh. He was trying to move in to- oh. “Oh.”

Alexander pauses, drawing back infinitesimally. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” He swallows. “That’s courteous of you. I’m fine. I just wasn’t… expecting you to turn in then.”

There’s a snort, and the man leans in instead to nuzzle in the crook of his shoulder, arm wrapping across Danse’s back in a hug more suited for comrades than lovers. “Won’t be courteous when you don’t want me to be,” he whispers, voice almost lost in a vibration against his neck, “I promise.”

An unbidden chill runs down his back, and he stiffens in his arms unconsciously, even as his own rise to return the embrace. Alexander’s body is built to climb, he realizes, built to keep posture and stay perfectly still. “You’re built like a hunter,” he observes, for lack of better things to say.

“Mm. And you like a train.” A long inhale- fingers drum across his back with a sort of varying pressure. He doesn’t understand but he doesn’t mind. And then he draws back- eyes already marked with those dishes of arousal Danse knows, but doesn’t, well, __know.__ “Listen.” And his voice dips lower- fractionally, but not in a way Danse would miss. “Teasing aside, are you sure you want to go through with something like this? Even just trying little things can be a bit much.”

A bit much. He __wants__ a bit much, though he has no words or ability to define or articulate what that is. He shakes his head, biting at the inside of his mouth before he can let the nerves coil too hard in his throat. “Please.”

“Shit.” He’s not expecting Alexander to make __that__ face- he can’t describe it. He looks… disarmed, for lack of better word, taken off-guard. “Just, the way you say __please.__ May I kiss you?”

Danse isn’t sure what to say, and his legs are willing down tremors of an unbearable brand of nervousness. So he just barely repeats, “Please.”

The man mutters __Jesus__ under his breath like it’s coming from the very base of his throat, then takes Danse by the back of the neck and yanks them together. Danse half-restrains gasping into Alexander’s mouth as the heat enters his own, shuts his eyes and feels that damn bonsai wire slip out of grasp as he grabs at Alexander’s shirt and lets himself lean in.

It’s good. There’s force- force Danse hasn’t ever known but for drunken, quick encounters in barracks and careless fucks he’s relinquished from memory- but the pressure of his open mouth is dizzying in a good way, makes him gasp in short moments apart and then drag him in for more.

For someone so infuriatingly careless in the office, he feels like the man’s expertly mapping every inch of him with his hands.

They don’t break contact even when Alexander takes both arms to his shoulders and presses him backward into the couch, sending the cheap floral-patterned material ensconcing his body from below, and the man’s from above- wrapping him, pressing him down. Those palms have found the sides of his neck, and Danse holds his breath, letting the passion unfurl to something primal as their tongues run across in the kiss, a low groan escaping him and vibrating against the man’s thumbs. Does he mean to-

Those hands stop- calluses brush hard against the prominent lines of his arteries, and Alexander snaps back so quickly Danse can hardly catch his breath. “Shit,” the man whispers, all but straddling him now. Their bodies dig hard into the cushions- Danse registers and compartmentalizes everything in that moment they take to regard each other: Alexander’s knees to each side of his body, the arousal above straining his fatigues.

And, in a dazed moment of agreement, Danse mutters, “Shit.” He leans his head back into the cushions and catches his own breath.

“Do you know what-” and “Tie my hands-” spills out simultaneously, and they both stiffen, and look to one another.

Danse could almost laugh if he wasn’t blushing so hard, if Alexander wasn’t straddling his stomach with half his weight and was distracting him with his- well, __everything.__

But Alexander does laugh. And it sounds like honey that Danse wants to lick down and off of him. “I can do that. Tie your hands, I mean,” he says, an edge creeping to his voice as he leans in, presses an open hand to Danse’s hard-breathing chest. “But you have to ask me nicer than that. Can you do that?”

He shudders in a breath. His own hard on is getting painfully needful- he holds his own urge to buck against Alexander’s thighs, find __some__ sort of touch. “Please,” he says, holding that gaze like he needs to prove how much he needs it.

And maybe he does. And maybe he wants to.

“Please,” he repeats, not even balking at the crack in his voice as his chest strains against the man’s weight on him. “Tie my hands. Sir.”

Alexander chuckles, seemingly satisfied, and takes the hands off to land on each side of Danse then, letting him breathe as he leans in and pecks a kiss against his ear- half a nibble, half a kiss. “Good. Very good. I knew you’d sound good saying that. Don’t touch yourself while I get the cuffs.” He whispers, next, “Don’t even undress. Just keep your hands on the armrests above your head.” Hands gently guide him at the elbows to raise his arms, flatten his palms against the armrest as directed.

And hold still under Alexander’s gaze.

The man nods, seeming satisfied, and slides away and off the couch, leaving Danse to valiantly fight his own urge to sit up, unbuckle his belt, __anything.__  He focuses instead on breathing, memorizing the cracks of the ceiling and wall, watching Alexander’s back as the man saunters to his bedroom. “So what we’ve started here is called a scene, and when we’re in the scene, we’re going to use safe words, okay? You know what safe words are?” he calls from there, seeming to sift through drawers.

Danse can’t even imagine what’s in there. “Yes,” he says, voice strained. “I do.”

“It’s not all bananas and pineapples,” he turns around and gives him a wolfish grin, “though it can be if you like.” He lingers there, seeming to memorize the picture of Danse poised so- __strictly__ on the couch, straining in arousal- then returns to sifting through his drawers as if nothing happened at all.

He shuts his eyes, fidgets his feet together. His shoes are still on, for God’s sake, and yet he’s aching so hard it barely even feels appropriate. “What words do you usually use?”

“Green, yellow and red are standard,” Alexander says, holding up something black and shiny that Danse belatedly recognizes as a gag. “But when you can’t talk, it’s one finger, two fingers or three. One, like green, to keep going, you’re fine, or you like what I’m doing,” he throws the gag back to the shelf, ignoring how Danse fixates on it, “two, like orange, to slow down. Red or three if you want it over, just terminate the scene no problem.” His hands finally settle somewhere in that drawer. “How does that sound to you?”

At this point he half wants to yell at him for taking his sweet, sweet time in there. “Good. Yes,” he whimpers, twisting his hips in unrest.

“Green, yellow and red?”

“Yes,” he groans.

“Yes what?”

He shuts his eyes and bites back a half-groan, half-laugh stuck in his throat. This almost feels like basic training all over, only… only it’s anything but. Alexander is asking him everything every step of the way and it is __murdering__ him. “Yes, Sir.”

“Good.” He hears the hard footfall of those boots on the wood floor, counts and anticipates every measure of them in tempo as the man approaches him, draws around to stand behind him at the side of the couch. “You might be getting frustrated with me now, but the last thing I need to do is tie you up and gag you and fuck you senseless on your first day with no training.”

Danse twists his face into his own arm and says nothing, because that’s exactly what he expected, no matter what Alexander had said they’d be doing- or at least always imagined, fantasized. His wrists flex at the armrest, and he anticipates that touch. It doesn’t come.

“Are you disappointed?”

“A bit,” he admits. “Sir.”

A chuckle. “We’re not there yet, pet,” the word rolls off so easily, low and casual, Danse almost doesn’t notice it until he __does,__ and then it’s emblazoned in his mind, echoing. “And even while we’re still figuring out what you like, this is about discipline. Service.” He feels a band wrap around his left wrist- cold to the touch, but leathery, brushing gently against his wrists even as Alexander fastens it firm.

This is happening.

His other one next. He grits his teeth, strains to look up at Alexander as the man hovers over him, straining his wrists together to fasten the cuffs until he feels- secured. Not limited. Secured. The man’s fingers rest across the outsides of each of his wrists. “You’re…” he almost stops himself. “You’re the last person I’d expect to hear about discipline from.”

There’s a dark laugh. A warning one. “Them be fighting words.”

He blushes, feels the pang rise already in his stomach. Hell knows how long Alexander will put things off __now.__ “I- sorry, I-”

“I’ll let it go this time,” the man says, leaning over him and playing a hand across his shirt collar, tracing the lines beginning at the top of his chest to just above the top button. “Do you want me to touch you some more?”

He wants to bark, _ _Yes, isn’t it obvious?_ “Yes.”_

“Then beg.”

He understands then. The safe words are established, and now- now Alexander is progressing, leading- taking. And he is- he’s to serve. He takes a breath. “Please,” he says. “Sir. Touch me more. Please.” It sounds awkward in his mouth, desperate, yet-

“Shit, you sound so good.” Alexander grunts, circling quickly around and half leaning over him, draping one leg over his body and into the couch. “Look up. Not here. We’ll see if you like not being able to see.”

He bites his lip and obeys, this time not finding the control to not buck, finding the friction unbearably scrape against his arousal as he rises to brush Alexander’s legs. There isn’t a sound- Danse swallows and worries then that he’s done something wrong, that he’ll-

He exhales quickly as he feels Alexander’s fingertips tracing the curvature of his knees. It would tickle if the man wasn’t so firm, exploratory even, yet he moves quickly upward, hand dividing his thighs as he progresses, then plays along maddeningly on his waist and hips.

It takes a palm, a gentle squeeze alone, to send an electric jolt up his neglected and desperate body; he’d be humiliated if he wasn’t already so __hard.__ “You’re so beautiful and you can’t even look,” Alexander’s whisper reaches as he massages the stiffness, pulling a low keening noise out of him. “And you’re being so good. Keeping your hands up, keeping your eyes away. You’re a fucking __wonder__ for a pet and I’m the man that gets to own you.”

His hands are in two white-knuckled fists, but he is- he is being good. He is memorizing the path of the sunlight across the reams of the window blinds to hold down the ache in his hips, but he is. And yet he still murmurs some kind of nothing sound, rolls up against Alexander’s hand, to the point that he’s about humping into that massaging grip, arousal stinging with the accumulated friction.

“Shit. I can’t even chuckle over how eager you are, it’s so hot. And this is just with _ _cuffs__.” A pause- the hand stills. “How is it?”

“It's- excellent,” he gasps, catching his back arching with the pleasure. “Green. Please. Alexander.” He is feeling every sentence and idea unraveling and slipping away in his brain. He knew what he was expecting when he came here- he really did. And yet for how wild the fantasies were, however extreme, in the end it’s so much more __electric__ to be in the moment, however tame, this close. There is so much sensation, and this-

He loses his train of thought with the momentary tightening across his hips, then- his belt undone, the strain infinitesimally reducing. “Say my name again like that.” He can feel the warmth and pressure of those fingertips ghosting just beneath his waistband, lingering on his fly, and the __pain…__

“Alexander,” he whispers. He can taste every syllable, like his mouth is watering.

“Good.”

Every tooth of the fly undone partly kills him, and when he finally strains free, embarrassingly soaked in his briefs with precum spread all across from the friction, Danse can almost cry with relief. He can’t see, but God, he’s a mess, and he knows it, and from the slow and appreciative grip on the lines of his hips leading toward his cock and the absolute silence from Alexander, the man knows it as well. “Please,” he groans. “Alexander. Take it all off.”

“Only since you’re doing so well.” He feels him set to work at taking off his boots, sliding his jeans off his hips and leaving his lower body bare but for those boxers plastered to his skin. After a moment of agonizing silence, Alexander commands, “Get up and don’t face me.”

Danse doesn’t know if it’s the words or the __tone__ that wrecks him more for him. He wants to gasp out, __Please do that again, I’ll do anything,__  but he strains every word inside, obediently rolling off of the couch and standing. His hands, he finds, really are cuffed in leather- wide, black strips secured by straps he can’t reach, a single steel ring binding them together.

Somehow it arouses him all the more to know he’d have to use his teeth if he wanted any hope of taking these off.

Alexander’s footfalls steadily go round his back. He hangs on every low fall of the boot, feeling almost pathetic there with his erection so clear to see, his socks on the bare wood floor. “You’re going to walk to the bedroom.”

The bedroom? His mouth feels dry. As silly as it was to be tied up on the couch, moving to the bed is forwardin a way that makes Danse feel all the more inexperienced, naive. Makes him think of anything and everything that can happen.

Makes him eager.

The bedroom is small, bare but for the made linen-sheeted bed and the two dressers. It seems unassuming at first, yet he can’t even bring himself to care- especially when he feels Alexander’s hand grip at the back of his neck and steer him to the foot of the bed. “Get on your knees. Head down.” Another touch slides across his bound hands, the front of his boxers- circles around the tip through the soaked fabric. “I want to see you present yourself to me.”

He feels the weight of that stare- as he hastens to obey, taking one knee then the other, supporting his balance awkwardly on his bound hands as he draws forward, positions himself. He couldn’t even imagine this before, yet relinquishing this sort of dignity- well- his erection twitches as he poises his ass in the air and digs into the sheets.

There’s a low sound like a strangled grunt from behind him. He can’t help but feel a stir of pride through the humiliation. Alexander is enjoying this. He brushes his face across the sheets, inhales hard to distract himself from his stiffening arousal.

Suddenly, Alexander asks, “Are you sure?” The question is soft, removed of all the husk and command, but for a trace. “Danse.”

He nods, halfway into the bed- then remembers, and says, “Green.” He could beg it at this point, but for how his entire body is presented to him for the taking in any way he pleases. “Please. Use me.”

He senses him climbing onto the bed, draping over him- feels the solid heat of the man’s crotch brush against his ass, sending his mind railing. Hands reach around him, shoving his shirt up to bunch up against his chest as Alexander’s weight and body press him further down, pin him there. What he doesn’t expect is the hand returning to his chest to slide across his nipple, toy with it by sliding the nub across his fingers and sending the softest, most glorious ache to add atop Danse’s already Everest-level mound of frustration. He grunts low against the sheets, the heat of Alexander’s breath pouring across his back as he pinches harder- and something electric pangs through from his back down his spine to his crotch to the point of it being __unbearable.__

God, wait, that’s amazing- he gasps open-mouthed into the bed now, half drooling as the man continues playing his nipples, __hard,__ between his fingertips. “Oh,” he murmurs, weakly. “ _ _Shit.__ ”

“Hmm?” His hips slide- __hard-__  against his ass, brushing just between his thighs and pulling upward, rolling friction against him. Danse feels the fingers slip beneath his waistband, finally, __god,__ and slide that last layer away, downward to his knees, slipping off his feet. And Alexander hasn’t taken off a single thing. “Here, how about this?” A fingertip taps the very tip of his cock. When he strains his neck, Danse can see the string of precum shine in a dribble as that finger withdraws, wraps in a palm around the base of his cock.

He moans then. A single, unrestrained animal groanas Alexander gives a slow pump across his length, gathering the precum he slides over his aching tip to slick the rest of him. He moves so steady Danse can barely breathe, his own hips and cock and body pressing him down so hard into the bed he can’t move, just lets that touch __finally__ pump almost the last vestiges of control from his body, fixing him painfully still as he strains and arches in the pleasure.

“Fuck.” He’s almost surprised by the brokenness of Alexander’s voice- he’s been so steady, nothing indicating he’s even unsettled but for the rock stiff erection digging into Danse’s ass. “Even your moans are beautiful. Fuck.” There’s a hasty work behind him, the unmistakable sound of a fly unzipping, and he bites his tongue.

Whatever happens- he’s imagined it over and over. That cock he’s seen, visualized, __known__ down to the pixel from the picture- he’s felt it a million times over inside of him, in his fingers and imagination in his bed with those same dark hands burning a bruising grip into his wrists, that same cock destroying every sense of restraint left in him.

He’s ready if it comes to that.

Danse feels the stiff length glide against his inner thigh, shielded only by the man’s boxers. “Jesus, you’re pretty like this.” He can’t help but grow warm from the praise, and, almost experimentally, grinds his hips against Alexander’s.

“Are we-” he starts, pauses. It feels like a break of the scene, but he feels he needs to say it, __they__ need to say it. “You can. If you want to. I- I’d like that.”

There’s a sharp inhale from behind him. “No, I have another idea.” The man reaches over his body, undoing one strap of Danse’s cuff with an expert tug and flick. He bites back the sound of disappointment, but Alexander says, next, “Prop yourself up on your hands and knees.”

He presses up, wobbling almost helplessly, supporting himself until he feels Alexander flat against his back, feels him whisper hot into his ear, “I’m going to make a fucking mess of you. Be a good pet and let me- stay quiet, stay still- and I’ll let you cum, okay?”

“Y-yes.” He clenches his eyes shut, and nods. “Yes, Sir.” He’s swallowing in determination to not stiffen his body as he senses Alexander probing across his inner thighs, stroking, brushing his taint and- finally- his entrance. The pads of his fingers roll around the sensitive flesh around his hole, probing- teasing.

Unexpectedly, the weight pinning him down recedes; Alexander seems to get back to the floor on the foot of the bed, hovering close to Danse’s thighs, hand palming across his ass. He thinks about asking to be spanked, or whipped, thinks he’d want Alexander’s hard firm hands to run along his sore body, but he needs to be quiet now, needs to be good. Needs to be of service.

He feels the warm, wet press of Alexander’s lips on his inner thigh. The bite is just a nibble, playful if anything, but it coaxes his cock to jerk to attention. As if sensing the growing aching need, Alexander’s hand returns to his cock, wraps around it- and it takes every ounce of Danse’s rapidly unraveling will to do as he’s told. Stay still. Don’t make a sound. Stay- he feels the hot touch of Alexander’s tongue run up his inner thigh and sucks in a hard breath of air.

He’s shivering. His muscles can barely handle this. That tongue runs a long wet trail across his balls, and Danse stiffens his hips when they feel the urge to buck, back, forward, __anywhere,__  when he feels it glide over his hole, circling around it and licking across him, taking in so much of him behind as Alexander’s hand jerks him off in front.

It’s almost too much at once.

And then, just as he laps just a bit into the clench of him, opens him and soaks him and __licks__ across him, hand gripping hard enough at his upper thigh to bruise, Danse falls apart, wrecked, the heat consuming him from both his ass to his cock and running up his spine and sending him almost to collapse on his arms, groaning as Alexander pump him so hard and fast it could hurt but for how __good__ it feels.

The heat stings and sprays across his chest, his chin, his arms- he jerks to move, only to feel the man shove him back downward, press him to ride that wave of pleasure, fucking into Sir’s hand until he’s spent,gasping, strained and so very spent- one hand cuffed with loose leather still dangling against it, the other gripping the bedsheets in one white-knuckled fist.

Even as he registers the thin dark patch of his own mess on the sheets, Danse thinks, he’s never felt his mind be so blissfully overwhelmed and, yet, simultaneously clear.

He lays still for a moment, catching his breath, feeling the stinging heat of his own cum dripping off his chest and stubble, until Alexander gently takes him by the shoulders and turns him on his back. He feels terrible then, sweat plastering to the sheets, cum sliding off of his stomach and cock and chest for the man to see- but when he cracks open his eyes, Alexander is grinning.

Cursorily, the man leans down, eyes fixing him with some kind of __watch me__ mischief that Danse knows too well from the office, and licks the spill along his belly button. Drags hot up to his sternum to the dip of his collarbone, where he rests, propped over him, pressing a long kiss to the delicate flesh of his neck.

“You did so well,” he whispers. “You were fucking amazing.”

Danse turns to him, feeling his chin graze against Alexander’s freckled brow, his thick black hair tickling against his skin. “I…” He had words for this. He really did. “Thank you. I don’t… That was…”

God, he’s a mess, too.

Alexander props himself up to his side, playing along the trail of hair at his crotch upward, massaging along his arms and sides. He feels himself blush, go still with the attention- no one’s ever done this before, but then, no one has ever done many of the things Alexander has just done to him. “I’m going to clean you up,” the man says. “But before I do- are you hurt anywhere? How do you feel?”

He blinks at him, jolted out of his post-coital daze by that jarring and sudden gentleness. “Outstanding.” He’s not lying- wouldn’t know how to right now. “Alive.”

The man searches his face like he’s looking for a trace of a lie, or hesitation; then, seemingly satisfied, deadpans, “You and words really get on, huh? Jokes aside, I’m glad you’re okay.” He cracks a smile, leaning in to kiss Danse on the temple. “We can talk about it more, what you liked or didn’t, or we can just be quiet while I take care of you.”

“I…” When he glances to him then, he thinks, __he doesn’t look like a dominant, or a top. Not when he’s looking at me like that. He looks like the infuriatingly lax sniper from work.__ The infuriatingly lax sniper that’s just bent him over and ate him out, he corrects himself dazedly.“We don’t need to talk yet. I need to think.”

“Okay.” He rolls off of the bed, casually discarding his own soiled shirt in the process. Over his shoulder, he says, “I’m going to the bathroom to get some towels. Let me know if you need anything.”

He doesn’t lie about cleaning him up. Before the sky has painted the walls of his apartment in shades of orange and pink, Alexander has already been over his entire body with almost ritualistic care, cleaning him and checking his wrists and then fitting him in a new (oversized) t-shirt, draping him in a quilted blanket. The last action just makes him stare at him, but it’s aftercare, Alexander says. This is what this is called. “Take or leave the blanket, you know? I can’t just dominate you in a scene and then leave you to sort it out all by yourself. No one should have to go through that.”

“What about- what about you?” he pauses, reaches for the term. “You didn’t get yours.”

“Oh. I didn’t need to. Not yet, not before you’re ready- and I’m ready.”

He just nods, a little numb, a little too warm inside his chest where he would never expect to be. He hadn’t even considered Alexander wouldn’t be ready for certain levels of this relationship- arrangement? Even the word they have for this is a question for another moment. He just needs the peace right now. “You surprise me, you know,” he murmurs, as they settle to the couch with the microwave meals Alexander’s so expertly concocted from his bachelorly excuse for a kitchen.

“And you me. You’re a natural, you know,” the man says, cocking an eyebrow at him before digging into his steamed potatoes and veggies. “But how so?”

Danse tries not to flush at the compliment, but evidently fails by the amused look on Alexander’s face. “Don’t take this as an insult, but you’re a more mature man than I took you to be.”

He nods, chewing thoughtfully and looking off to space. “There’s a time to be mature. Just don’t expect me to do it at a job I’m shit at.”

He can’t help but smile and feel a little irked at that at the same time. “You know, I can make sure to report that you’re field ready and rehabilitated as soon as you need to. You’re built like a natural soldier.” It’s not really what __he__  wants- but he doesn’t really know what he wants, beyond the simple and carnal, and Alexander really __is__ floundering in the offices.

To his surprise, he says, “No, it’s fine. My confidence can take me being the world’s worst paper pusher for a little longer. Preston say’s it’s helping me reflect on the man I want to be, if I end up returning to contracting. Teaching me patience.”

 _ _If__ he returns to contracting. Danse knows and has known that there isn’t a single gun case or rack or ammunition box or any weapon at all to be seen in this apartment. Alexander evidently has a certain disposition to battle- but he won’t comment. He knows he doesn’t need to. Instead he quips, “You, impatient? Unimaginable.”

“Only as impatient as you are,” the man cracks a grin. “And infinitely less hard on myself. Oh. Hey. I’ve got a great idea for another word we can use. One that says, ‘fuck yeah, please keep doing that’- like that thing with your nipples that you like.”

Danse feels his eyebrows furl in confusion. He still can’t get over how openly Alexander discusses sex. “What?”

“Okay, get this,” the grin grows to a shit-eating level. “Bonsai.”

“...No.”

“Look, if anyone could make that sexy, it’s yo-”

“Don’t flatter me. No.”

“But-”

* * *

__What__ _ _the heck__ _ _kind of witchcraft is Fortune brewing to make the bonsai tree so damn green,__ is the first question Haylen asks.

The second one she knows better than to pose directly in the office first thing on a Monday morning, though she ventures far enough to say, "So, how was Hamilton?" in a  _gratuitously_ insinuating tone when everyone is out of earshot. In wonderful timing to save him from any explanation, Danse’s phone gives of an indicative __vrrrb__ of vibration from his desk drawer, they look to each other, and she smirks so victoriously he almost wants to smirk back, say something. But he doesn’t, just smiles and shakes his head, hands her some project files, lets her set the miniature potted succulent in hand right next to the bonsai tree, and takes a sip of his water.

From the look she gives him on her way out his office door, it’s unmistakable that she wants every juicy detail he can conjure on this _Hamilton_. He’s almost sad to disappoint her, but as Alexander has said, it’s a time to pace things. To have discipline.

And she would probably never let him live it down, and he and Alexander have agreed, they’re keeping work as work, and every now and then he’s going to have to chide him, and Alexander is going to have to be as insufferably leisurely about it as he’s always been, and Danse will have to get frustrated enough with him to leave him to his devices for a spell, and then Alexander will have to play at sulking with his rubber band ball.

And then they’re going to go home.

As soon as the glass door swings shut, he reaches beneath the drawer and unlocks his phone. It’s- well, it’s expected.

 __“you look_ _ __like you got some down time to relax this weekend_ _ __;)_ _ __want to lunch together? i think with our combined tactics and covert operations experience we could sneak you over to this great thai place i know round the block_ _ __”_ _

He looks up. Alexander, sitting with his legs propped up on his desk and file open in his arms, is throwing a smile and wink at him with an enthusiasm unexpected of __anyone__  on a Monday. He turns back down to the phone, and taps out, “ _ _i have a lunch meeting"__ and hits send.

Alexander is __visibly__ quick about checking his phone again. His expression is unreadable upon seeing it, but he replies, " _ _all’s the pity but that’s how it is for a boss, huh?"__

Danse ruminates on the text, rolling his thoughts about in his mind. ‘ _ _it is,’__  he types, slowly, thoughtfully. Then he clicks send, then he slowly, very subtly, reaches beneath his desk. He’s been thinking about this. In his mind, it’s only fair- and maybe, it’s just what people do.

Okay, and maybe he wants to, in a small and curious part of him. At least try it. His blood rushes a hard, thumping rhythm through his ears as he takes a wary glance upward, finds Alexander cruising through a tirade from Rhys, Haylen waist-deep in coffee and papers- no eyes to the office. Danse angles the phone and works his fly. And he turns on his camera.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was entirely more than I originally intended to write for this prompt inspo, but I hope you enjoyed.  
> I worried about the ending decision to have Danse do THAT, characterization-wise, but I justify it in being, well, novice enthusiasm.  
> Anyway, toss me a heads up if I get something wrong in this chapter BDSM-wise- like I said before, I'm kinky fucker enough, but I can get things wrong and I'd rather edit for accuracy because that was what I was going for here.  
> On that note, honestly, I'm all for the super kinky extreme fantasy fic sex Danse thinks here, where characters are not briefed at all and there's just kinks and mad anal fucking and all that. YKINMK etc. I was more trying to go for the funny and silly awkwardness of trying to get into it for the first time. But everyone's experiences are different, I definitely don't know everything, and so I'm down to discuss it.  
> TLDR; thanks so friggin much for reading, and if you've got a moment let me know how you liked my socially awkward BDSM porn. I'm also on tumblr as Kollapsar with an nsfw sideblog, Ass-Victoriam. You can shout into the void at me there too. I'll probably shout back. Cool.


End file.
